Greenwich surgeon's work lands him in the Smithsonian

Doctor's study of twins, taking pictures earns him a spot in museum

Plastic Surgeon Darrick Antell, M.D. holds an article showing his work published in Elle magazine inside his home in Greenwich, Conn. Saturday, Sept. 27, 2014. Dr. Antell's nature versus nurture study of identical twins was recently featured at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington and will go on the road to be shown at several other cities throughout the country. less

Plastic Surgeon Darrick Antell, M.D. holds an article showing his work published in Elle magazine inside his home in Greenwich, Conn. Saturday, Sept. 27, 2014. Dr. Antell's nature versus nurture study of identical twins was recently featured at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington and will go on the road to be shown at several other cities throughout the country. less

Dr. Darrick Antell had an interesting idea as a physician and researcher in the field of plastic surgery: take pictures of identical twins and find out how and why they looked differently as they aged.

He took a picture of one woman -- a sun-lover and nudist now living in Hawaii -- and her identical twin, who lived a more modest lifestyle in Baltimore. They looked quite different as they entered their 30s.

"It was thrilling when I got the call, that my work had been selected," said Antell, a married father of five who lives in midcountry Greenwich.

"Research often takes years before it's recognized. And I don't think there's been another plastic surgeon in the Smithsonian before."

Antell took a tour this summer of the Smithsonian exhibit featuring his work, "Genome: Unlocking Life's Code." He visited the museum with family members, posing for goofy photos and chatting with staff.

"It was a blast," he recalled.

Antell was the first in his field to document the way faces can be affected by environmental factors like sun and stress in a 1999 article, "How Environment and Lifestyle Choices Influence the Aging Process" in a medical journal, Annals of Plastic Surgery.

"It exposed how you can express your genes, by interacting with your environment," he said.

"It gets at the core of the nature versus nurture debate."

The twins festival was the perfect place to do the research -- and it also gave him a chance to visit with family and friends from the town where he grew up, Independence, Ohio.

"I was taking pictures as fast as a I could, and of course, back then, it was on Kodachrome film," he recalled.

"There were also interviews and questionnaires with study participants.

Antell and his assistant found that siblings taking part in the Ohio twin festival often looked quite different due to their exposure to what Antell calls the three S's: sun, stress and smoking.